Monday, April 6, 2009

Basic Birth 4/06/09

All other days have either disappeared into darkness and oblivion or not yet emerged from it. Today is the only day there is.

Frederick Buechner
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Welcome to my world.
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Time is a gracious friend and also a fierce enemy. We can measure the past with memories, charts and journals. We can parcel out the future according to our needs and wishes. The thing we can't measure is the present, at least not according to time.

Time is a relative measurement. It usually refers to how long it took for something to happen. It's related to space in how long it takes an object to go from one place to another. It's also a linking mechanism. It can identify an event with another event. Such and such a thing happened at the same time as the other. History books will give us charts with fascinating information that is of relatively no use, except to historians. Alexander the Great was born on the same day that the Temple of Diana at Epheses came down.

Although the future is unpredictable we can still make charts to help us get through it. There's the Mom's mental chart of when the kids are up, dressed and fed in time for the school bus. When dinner starts in order to be ready for the family when they're hungry. Things have to be done by 10 so she can watch the TV special on panda bears.

In broadcasting there is something known as back timing. The announcer kinows how many lines of copy he can read in one minute. If he's playing a song at the end of an hour that leads up to the 3:00 news with a tone on the hour, and if he has a 60 second commercial and a 30 second commercial, as well as a station break, he has to back time that record so that it ends at exactly 2:58:10. Announcing the song will take him to 2:58:20. The 60 second commercial will take him to 2:59:20. The 30 second commercial will take him to 2:59:50. He has 10 seconds to do a station break and say "At the tone the time will be 3 o'clock." Then comes the tone and the news. If he does it right it sounds effortless and automatic. Broadcasters live their lives by the clock.

The only thing about time we can't measure is the now, this instant. It is the only thing we are ever conscious of and yet it instantly becomes the past. Every note the singer sings passes into history as soon as he sings it. Every pitch the pitcher throws disappears into oblivion the moment it is thrown. The reading of this sentence has become already a part of your past. And that is why I think it is so important to be always alert and receptive of thoughts, ideas and opportunities. The now is where we live, where we have always lived and always will live. Every moment of our lives is a birth. It's a reaching up out of the cradle for the arms of a new experience, a higher lesson and a greater awareness of joy.

DB - The Vagabond
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May the cherubs of spring visit you today.
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6 comments:

Beth said...

Oh, this was just lovely, D. And so true! Those who live in the past, or dream only of what might happen to them in the future, are missing out on the biggest and best portion of their lives--the here and now.

Hugs, Beth

Rose~* said...

Well said, Db - I try to live each day like it's my last and savour each memory. Sometimes I don't always reach this goal, but there's never any regrets. (((HUGS)))

sarah said...

Beautiful post DB,) funnily enough I was just reading another post about time and commenting that I keep reading everywhere that it is an illusion, as you say the present is all that matters, not always easy to remember thought huh!...)

Happy Monday)))

Bohemian Cowboy said...

Great post. I've always thought that the past, the present, and the future are one and the same, figuratively, the memory stores the past, the present the door to the future with images to help create it. I hang onto memories keenly, the ones that are pleasing, I play out in my mind again and again. That's what I love about theatre, I can bring the past to the present, and recreate pangs of it on any given night. At the end of a performance, even though I don't think then in specific memory, I feel the ever present effect it has on my present, which as you say, has now become my past. I suppose there are all kinds of tricks we can use to hang onto a memory just a little bit longer. Thanks for the post, thank you for you comments, I relate always to what you have to say, and learn from every word.

Bohemian Cowboy said...

One more thought I read last night.

Happiness makes the body feel better, but it is grief that sharpens the mind...

Proust.

Arlene (AJ) said...

Always a post that makes us stop and think, as usual you touched all of us DB. Past situations in life have taught me to enjoy this moment, don't worry about yesterday, it's gone, just look forward to tomorrow. Life is too short to allow anything or anyone to upset or stress you out. Enjoy NOW, it's all we are guaranteed.